Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

50 The Xavante in Central Brazil
Map 4.2 Xavante Reserves in Eastern Mato Grosso State
Map by John Cotter in Graham 1995. Reproduced with permission of the University of Texas Press.
It is best to think of the Xavante as a more or less
integral group of politically autonomous communities
whose members share similar cultural and
linguistic patterns. Factionalism is pervasive
within and between communities. Agreements
therefore can be precarious, and village fissioning
is characteristic of the political system
(Maybury-Lewis 1974, 165–213). As their history
of interactions with outsiders demonstrates,
distinct Xavante groups act independently.
Cooperation between communities can be
achieved to advance perceived common goals,
but as the next section shows, the potential for
disaggregation and conflict is ever present.
2.2 The Quest for Autonomy and Territory
Xavante are known for their fierce desire for
autonomy and self-determination. For more than
two centuries they moved steadily westward, in
retreat from the advancing frontier of Brazilian
colonization. The first historical documents 6 to
mention the Xavante date from the late eighteenth
century and locate them in what is now the
Brazilian state of Tocantins, in territory occupied
either contiguously or in common with the
Xerente, from whom they were probably indistinguishable.
Some time in the second half of the
nineteenth century, a number of disparate Xavante
factions united to put distance between themselves
and the advancing frontier by pushing
across the Araguaia River into new territory.
They settled in the Rio das Mortes region, in a
village known as Tsõrepré. By the 1930s this
coalescence had begun to fracture, and various
groups splintered off from Tsõrepré to populate a
broad area in what is now eastern Mato Grosso.
These groups still shared a common aversion
toward outsiders and any attempt to establish